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Physical Media might not be dead, but Physical Media in Retail Stores are accelerating the death (1 Viewer)

bmasters9

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Oh... the joy of having the doorman hand me a package that's just been delivered!

And, oh... that horrible anxiety about opening the package to find out that my special edition BD boxset/magazine/book has dog ear, creases, crushed corners or some other BS due to poor handling or bad packaging. :eek:

That never happened when I bought things at the store, because I could handpick my copies... but the stores always charged me more than online retailers, so...

And there's the rub-- pay more by getting what you like at a store, and get it in possibly unblemished quality, or purchase online, have it get to your house, and have it maybe manhandled to kingdom come? The choice is an intriguing one.
 

jayembee

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Are we coming full circle? Didn't movies on video start mostly with third party companies until VCRs sales really took off and then they wanted to do directly use it as a major revenue stream?
I don't think so. At least, not quite. It's obviously been ages since the dawn of home video, but I believe that a lot of the first commercially-available VHS/Beta releases were from small companies releasing titles that were in the Public Domain, or whose provenance wasn't clear. Outfits like Nostalgia Video.

But you're right in that it was sales of VCRs in the wake of the Disney, et al. v Sony "Betamax" case that got the major studios to decide "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em".
 

Jesse Skeen

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Magnetic Video was the first label to put out major studio movies (not public-domain or porn) on VHS and Beta in 1977, their first big license was 20th Century Fox which bought them after a few years.
 

TJPC

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A bit off topic, but the Monty Python group published books. One is called something like “Monty Python’s New Book”. I leafed through about 20 of these trying to find a good one, when I realized they all had the same dirty looking thumb print and crease in the cover. They also were made so any handling caused the cover to come off!
 

Sam Posten

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How did you go broke? Slowly at first then all at once. -Hemingway.

We are gonna be in for a big shock when the major retailers just stop carrying disks. It’s gonna be like a whirlwind when it happens.
 

Josh Steinberg

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I genuinely don’t mean to be argumentative but at least for me, it’s not going to be a shock. It really shouldn’t be a shock for anyone who’s followed the state of retail in the past decade or two. What retail business hasn’t been massively disrupted by online retailers, digital delivery, or both? Borders went under ten years ago because they couldn’t sustain a low volume, low margin, high inventory, large physical footprint business then. Many malls have turned into ghost towns. JC Penney’s is on its way out, Sears is on its way out, Macy’s is hanging on by a thread. Best Buy does more business online than in their stores. This isn’t specific to discs.

We’re in the middle (maybe near the end?) of a massive shift in the way consumers get their goods. No more worrying about whether your local stores carry the right sizes for your shirts and shoes. Feeling nostalgic for an old song you used to like? Press a button and you can hear it right away, no more going to record stores and special ordering a copy that won’t arrive for week. Did you see someone on TV talking about a book that might interest you? You can press a button and start reading it now. New release movies go on sale digitally three weeks before the disc comes out and are never out of stock. There’s not an area of retail that hasn’t been affected by this.

I’m not saying it’s all good. I’m not saying it’s all bad. I’m just saying that this is what it is.

The last discs that will remain in stores will be mass market new releases of tentpole titles, the kind of thing that they can put an endcap up near the register on release week and then pull it down once the product stops moving. It doesn’t make sense for most catalog material to be carried in stores. But on the flip side of that, not having to manage a distribution pipeline of getting copies to retailers across the country and then taking back unsold inventory, and instead selling direct to consumer via a few websites, means that the bar can be lowered on what’s a success, and the catalog business can continue as a successful niche for a while longer. Taking out the retail component means that selling 500 copies of a niche title can turn a profit; printing up 10,000 copies to distribute to stores nationwide only to sell 500 in total is a loss that’s increasingly harder to recover from. The best thing for disc enthusiasts is for all players in the industry to treat discs like the niche they are so that the sales goals and methods of distribution can be adjusted to that new reality. That’s essentially what’s happening now with Warner and Universal combining their home video departments, and Sony taking on Lionsgate’s home video, and with all studios licensing out catalog to entities like Kino.

But I dunno, it’s just not really a shock to me. These days I’m more surprised when I hear people say that they went to a store looking for a disc than I’m surprised that the stores aren’t carrying many.
 

DonB34

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The sales numbers bear that out - at its height, physical media sales grossed about $20 billion a year about 10–15 years ago, and that was down to about $2 billion last year.
A small part of that though, I would say came from the fact that no new movies hit the theaters. If there were no summer blockbusters in theaters to hit the store shelves on DVD/blu-ray/UHD four months later, then obviously that's going to put a dent in the numbers compared to years past. As others have mentioned, with stores closed down and states in lockdown, there were also no "impulse buys" to speak of that help the market a little.
 

Traveling Matt

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If you mean subscription streaming, that’s not meant to replace ownership - that’s the 21st century successor to premium cable subscriptions, linear channels like HBO or Showtime. Those don’t come with bonus features either.
Yes, that's what I meant. Is there a consensus on digital downloads falling under the "streaming" name nowadays? I've seen it mentioned here once or twice before now that I think about it, but AFAIK they're still separate. Certainly in terms of practical delivery they're entirely different.
 

Josh Steinberg

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Very few people who purchase digital media actually go through the trouble of downloading a file - most who purchase digital medial use a box like an AppleTV or Roku or FireStick to purchase the title and then stream it from the provider they’ve purchased from.

So I see “streaming” as an umbrella term that can describe both renting or purchasing specific titles a la carte as well as subscribing to different services. I see it as being similar to the way people saying “watching TV” could mean channel surfing or it could mean watching a video. “Streaming” to me just represents the generic delivery method, not specifically what’s being delivered.
 

DonB34

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Missing are total market numbers. Is it a growing dvd market of a growing disc market? Or is it shrinking UHD sales in a shrinking disc market?
Thanks to Letterboxd I can tell you that I own over 800 movies on blu-ray, over 1900 movies on DVD, and probably another 600 TV shows on a mixture of both..... but I have yet to purchase any movies in 4K. I did buy a 4K player about a year and a half ago, for fear that they may dry up and not exist eventually, but it's still in the box unopened. I went from VHS to DVD to blu-ray on most of the movies that I enjoy. It just doesn't seem worth it to upgrade a fourth time. Not to mention new Hollywood just doesn't do it for me (I'm mostly purchasing older movies). I may buy Zach Snyder's Justice League in 4K, and maybe in the future at some point I'll upgrade some movies that I love like Scott Pilgrim vs The World, but even as someone who is a hardcore film enthusiast, I just can't get excited about another upgrade. I'll never go to streaming or digital download, so blu-ray is probably going to be my peak level on most media that I own.

I think maybe a small part of why people made the jump from DVD to streaming was due to blu-ray. Normal everyday people didn't want to purchase a new player, they didn't understand that their DVDs could be played on a blu-ray player, so after going from VHS to DVD they got frustrated at a new media and opted out. Netflix streaming made more sense for them at that point. Even for me seeing a new form of physical media with the 4K, I was just like "enough is enough in such a short period of time".
 

Josh Steinberg

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A small part of that though, I would say came from the fact that no new movies hit the theaters. If there were no summer blockbusters in theaters to hit the store shelves on DVD/blu-ray/UHD four months later, then obviously that's going to put a dent in the numbers compared to years past. As others have mentioned, with stores closed down and states in lockdown, there were also no "impulse buys" to speak of that help the market a little.

I think there may be some truth to that, but it’s also true that streaming revenue from both digital purchases and subscription services had growth ahead of the declines in physical sales. 2020 also had disc releases of 2019 theatrical mega hits like the most recent Star Wars film, long awaited catalog titles like the original Star Wars titles, etc. Even though it wasn’t a normal environment, a lot more product came out than I would have guessed. So I think a small part of the decline could be related to the pandemic limiting some theatrical releases but I think the larger trend of moving from physical to digital was well in place before covid was ever a thing.
 

DonB34

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Good points. However, note that a lot of movie/TV show fans/collectors don't have VCR's or VHS tapes & don't plan on ever getting them again. I myself never replaced my VCR when it broke in the mid-'90's, due to really hating the format - and this was even before there was anything better out there. Now, I can't imagine ever going back, especially that we have so many superior formats like streaming/DVD's/Blu's, etc.

Also, lot of media that isn't available on DVD/Blu-ray can still be found via streaming. For example, the movie Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and the TV series Midnight Caller (1988-1991) have never been on DVD/Blu-ray (and in the case of MC, never even hit VHS). However, if you look hard enough you can find streams of these online.
After about 10 years without a VCR, I found one in brand new condition at a local Goodwill for $4. I figured why not pick it up!? I managed a video store in the early 90s and I stockpiled some VHS tapes as we cleaned out the VHS catalog to make space for DVD. Our chain was selling them for $1.99, but 2 get 2 free. I have some great movies like The Wizard of Space and Time that were never released on DVD or blu-ray, and now I can watch them again. I've also found some VHS tape at Goodwill like The Player for 99-cents. I hadn't seen that movie before, so why not buy it on the cheap and see if I want to upgrade later?

For me, it's been a great experience owning a VCR again. It gives another option when a movie you want to see is not available on a disc. It's a similar feeling to deciding to go region-free... but VHS tapes are genrally much cheaper to purchase than importing Region 2/B! People are literally giving these things away.
 

DonB34

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Another area affected by all this are the "used media" B&M stores. I used to frequent some really awesome shops in my town that deal in used music/records/comics/collectables/books/etc. as well as BDs & movies.

But I get depressed and rarely go to any of them anymore. These stores still have TONS of movies for sale. But the selection is terrible!

There are rarely any 4K UHD films on the used market - and if there are - there are multiple copies of that same bad film everywhere! One used to be able to frequent these stores to get UHD discs, box sets, complete TV series sets, foreign or hard to find films, etc. But most enthusiasts, like us, are most likely to buy these films new & keep them. So the used market just isn't any good anymore. It's even harder to find some of these on ebay anymore too.
To me, the pre-pandemic was like the golden age for used media. People were selling off their CD collections, selling off their DVDs, and I was reaping the benefits. I live near Pittsburgh and we have 11 locations for The Exchange, and 3 Half Price Books stores, not to mention a local place called CD Warehouse. For the past several years my fun Friday night every payday after work including visiting areas where I could hit at least two of those stores before 10PM. I'd walk out with $1 DVDs, $2 DVDs, $5 DVDs, etc.. For less than $50 I might come home with 9 movies I was interested in seeing and 3 CDs. They do sell new movies also. Some harder to find used titles might be $8 or $10. Sometimes Criterion films would be in the $10-$15 range. CD Warehouse has a Buy 3 Get 1 Free deal daily. It was great.

Now..... they all close at 7PM! I work until 6:30, so I can't do my Friday night shopping trips (or any other weeknight for that matter). With 3 rivers and a million bridges here, I don't really like to go out shopping on Saturdays other than locally because the parkway traffic is not fun. The last time I went out to my local Half Price Books, they had basically all the same stuff they had on the shelves from before the pandemic. I heard some customers complaining because their "buy window" was only 2 hours per day and they were getting turned away on multiple days. Small buy window doesn't leave much opportunity for new items to hit the shelves. So my plan to stockpile used media as the market declines has hit a snag. I agree it's become difficult to find good things on the used market.

Having said that, hit your local Goodwill stores. I've found many out of print items like season one of Moonlighting, D.A.R.Y.L, and the Charles Grodin / Martin Short "classic" Clifford for $1.49 each. As people are home and cleaning out their houses, their media collections are going to Goodwill in many cases.
 

DonB34

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I think there may be some truth to that, but it’s also true that streaming revenue from both digital purchases and subscription services had growth ahead of the declines in physical sales. 2020 also had disc releases of 2019 theatrical mega hits like the most recent Star Wars film, long awaited catalog titles like the original Star Wars titles, etc. Even though it wasn’t a normal environment, a lot more product came out than I would have guessed. So I think a small part of the decline could be related to the pandemic limiting some theatrical releases but I think the larger trend of moving from physical to digital was well in place before covid was ever a thing.
No doubt that the numbers would be down overall..... but had Black Widow, Wonder Woman 1984, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Spider-man: No Way Home, Minions: The Rise of Gru, No Time To Die, Top Gun: Maverick, The Matrix 4, Morbius, etc etc come out in May through July like they were supposed to, that would have been a ton of Quarter 3 and Quarter 4 DVD, blu-ray, 4K sales added to that $2 Billion. Probably not enough to add a billion dollars to that number, but it would have been substantial money. These are the types of movies that people impulse buy on Black Friday deals also.
 

Josh Steinberg

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I don’t doubt it, but you’d also see a bump towards digital sales of those titles as well, so in the end, the disparity between physical and digital wouldn’t be changed much. However you look at the numbers, the amount of business that digital is gaining exceeds the amount of business that physical is losing.
 

TJPC

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I have not done this for a while, because my computer got too old to upgrade, but until a year ago, I often would purchase “CDs” from iTunes. I am a disc man, so I would burn the “CD” to my own disc and make a cover and booklet.

Why can’t a similar process be used to burn our own Blu rays or DVDs for those of us who must have the actual disc?
 

Guardyan

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[...] I did buy a 4K player about a year and a half ago, for fear that they may dry up and not exist eventually, but it's still in the box unopened. [...]
That makes the OCD in me scream. Imagine opening the box and finding out that the device is defective. No way to get it replaced.

I have not done this for a while, because my computer got too old to upgrade, but until a year ago, I often would purchase “CDs” from iTunes. I am a disc man, so I would burn the “CD” to my own disc and make a cover and booklet.

Why can’t a similar process be used to burn our own Blu rays or DVDs for those of us who must have the actual disc?
If I've learned anything about the recent lawsuits that Apple has been facing is that Apple removed DRM from music like 15 years ago, but the same hasn't happened for movies because studios won't allow Apple and the like to remove DRMs from movies sold online. So I guess that's why you can't burn your legally downloaded movies to discs.
 

BobO'Link

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I have not done this for a while, because my computer got too old to upgrade, but until a year ago, I often would purchase “CDs” from iTunes. I am a disc man, so I would burn the “CD” to my own disc and make a cover and booklet.

Why can’t a similar process be used to burn our own Blu rays or DVDs for those of us who must have the actual disc?
Greed on the part of the studios.
 

Josh Steinberg

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They’re afraid that if they don’t use DRM, that people will bootleg them more easily. It’s not the best argument since all of the encryption gets cracked anyway by people who will never ever pay for it no matter what, but they don’t want to make it any easier.

Another thing is that at this point in home media, very few people download their purchases to begin with - the overwhelming majority purchase and then stream. There’s not a big market of download only users to begin with, so there’s no real upside to them offering that capability.
 

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